A boy named Bro-ham

I grew up on the west side of Lansing, Michigan in a neighborhood that was mostly Catholic.  The kids were named after saints and angels and Notre Dame football coaches.

It was a time of innocence.

When I was in the fourth grade, sometime in the late 1960s, my mom decided that I needed to take a class at "the Y" to round out my education.   That is where I met Bro-ham.

Other than the sissy shirt with lapels, this kid is a dead ringer (or dead singer) for Bro-ham.

With the disarming lack of dissembling common to clueless kids, I commented that I had never met a kid named "Bro-ham."  I knew bushels of Mikes and Joes and Pats and Marys, but not a single Bro-ham.

I asked him what country Saint Bro-ham came from.

Bro-Ham expanded my horizons when he told me that he had been named for his Daddy's favorite car.

Thinking furiously, Cutlass?  Nope.  Delta?  Nope.  98? Nope.  Vista Cruiser? Nope.  The closest I could come was Jimmy and nobody I knew in Lansing drove one.  We were an Oldsmobile town.

Did I mention that I was not very wordly when I was in fourth grade?

So I asked, " 'N what kind of car is that?"

"You know." Bro-ham said.  A Buke Duece-inna-qwadda Bro-ham."

Seen through that lens, Kubota's name is not all that original.